A Needless Risk

January 23, 1961

Once more we have had an interregnum (of two and a half months) between the election of one President and the retirement of a predecessor of the opposite party. Once more needless risks were taken, uncertainty created, urgent decisions postponed, and serious harm done by the long delay in actual transfer of office and power.

The Communists did not miss their opportunity to exploit this interregnum. Castro launched on more seizures, charges, insults, and humiliations. When Mr. Eisenhower at last took the only step possible in breaking off relations, Mr. Kennedy disassociated himself from it on the excuse that he did not know the facts. There was even Democratic criticism of Mr. Eisenhower for “limiting the freedom of action” of the new Administration—though any decision or action whatever by the outgoing Administration in any field would necessarily do that.

Then Khrushchev sent a New Year’s message, not to the legal President but to the President-elect, expressing hope that relations between the U.S. and Soviet Russia would “develop in the new year on a new and reasonable basis”—in other words, that we would make more retreats and concessions. Nothing was said in reply to disabuse him of this hope.

PREMATURE BUDGET

Communist aggression in Laos was greatly stepped up in tempo. In reply, the Eisenhower Administration could do little promptly or decisively because it had only a few weeks more in office.

By foolish law, and not by any constitutional requirement, Mr. Eisenhower had to deliver, within a few weeks of his leaving office, a new State of the Union Message, and a budget for a fiscal year that does not begin until next July 1—a year during which he will not be in office a single day and for which he cannot reasonably be expected to assume responsibility. It is improbable that Congress or the new Administration will pay the slightest attention to this budget. Its premature presentation not only puts needless work on the outgoing Administration but serves the mischievous purpose of seeming to relieve the incoming Administration of full fiscal responsibility for that year.

In Britain the budget for a new fiscal year does not have to be presented to Parliament until a few weeks after that fiscal year has already begun. Our budget law ought to be amended right now either to relieve an outgoing President of this senseless duty, or to change the fiscal year, or to postpone the required date of the annual Budget Message.

DANGER TO THE DOLLAR

But perhaps the most serious damage of the interregnum just ended has been in the monetary field. On Nov. 28 President Eisenhower served notice that he was “determined to take whatever decisions are necessary . . . to protect the integrity of the dollar.” From an Administration with only seven weeks to live, this pledge was practically meaningless. The attempt, wise or unwise, to negotiate with Germany on troop support was doomed to fail. What the world wanted to know was what the new President would do. But Mr. Kennedy was silent. He refused to repeat his pre-election pledge (of Oct. 30) not to “devalue the dollar from its present rate.”

His excuse for his silence and disassociation was substantially the same as Roosevelt’s to Hoover 28 years ago: “It would be unwise for me to accept an apparent joint responsibility with you when, as a matter of constitutional fact, I would be wholly lacking in an attendant authority.” Yet all during the interregnum period Mr. Kennedy was receiving and publishing “task force” reports recommending immense increased spending and deficit-creating measures. All these were undermining confidence in the dollar and increasing the run on gold.

The risks and evils of the interregnum period could be removed by a simple amendment of the Presidential Succession Act permitting any outgoing and incoming President to agree, if both wished it, to an earlier transfer of office and power than Jan. 20. This earlier date could be set in each case in accordance with circumstances and mutual convenience. Responsibility would then no longer be blurred, decisions no longer paralyzed.